A Life Flashing
by secondprinces
Summary: [Warning: Spoilers abound within] "I can't. I can't burn," Lio manages. "I just can't. Not anymore. I'm spent." He stares at his hand, acutely aware that one arm had fallen to ash. He feels no pain, just a numbness tingling at his shoulder. "There's nothing left of me to burn." Lio's life flashes before his eyes before Galo revives him. (Cross-posted to AO3)


Well it has been a LONG time since I've been on ffnet, but...I've made a new account and thought I'd post some stuff here as well. This is my first attempt at Promare, so I'm still getting a feel for the characters, but I am excited to write for this fandom. This is cross-posted to my AO3 (same user ID). Thank you for giving it a read and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

The Parnassus.

A hellish ship, powered by Burnish strapped to hundreds of cells within the engine. Lio can't see their faces but he can _feel_ the primal terror weaving themselves into the heat of the flames they all shared.

And Lio Fotia: chained into the wrecked core—taut arms growing numb as his chest heaves.

_We're all going to die here_, Lio thinks, biting back a snarl. The cords dig into his arms as he yanks against them.

_We're all going to die and I'm powerless to stop it_.

For a second. One precious second—he'd had hope—before Kray had ripped him from the heart of _Lio de Galon_ and strapped him into his own machine.

He hangs his head.

_I've failed them all_.

_I've failed_.

Hundreds of screams split through the silence as the wheels within the cells start to spin—faster and faster until the flames of the Burnish glow searing hot.

Lio winces, their cries a thousand lashes echoing into a crescendo.

The flames penetrate the engine core—feeding into the cords and through Lio's body like a wildfire razing a forest. Every nerve fires. Heat and energy crackles through him, shaking him like a rag doll.

Lio throws his head back as a scream splinters from his throat. Tears prick at eyes caught open—black and white and every color in-between flashing like fireworks in his vision.

He can't discern his own voice from the hundreds seizing his consciousness.

It builds, threatening to rip his body apart.

He gasps for breath, choking on his own blood and spit.

And then it cuts away.

Silent.

And black.

A numbness creeps over Lio, but then he feels the steady boil of magma, somewhere in the Earth's core. It seeps through him, a heavy warmth in his chest. Even heavier in his limbs.

_Burn. Burn. Burn._

That familiar urge—the voice that had been screaming in his head since he'd first turned. The voice that recently had—for the first time—been drowned out by his own screams.

Not his _own_ thoughts, as he'd once assumed, but the demands of the Promare. He knew that now.

And he _feels_ them, on a level he'd never felt them before, writhing below the surface.

"I can't. I can't burn," Lio manages. "I just can't. Not anymore. I'm spent." He stares at his hand, acutely aware that one arm had fallen to ash. He feels no pain, just a numbness tingling at his shoulder. "There's nothing left of me to burn."

_Let us burn the earth once. Let us burn until it's out._

A wry laugh catches in Lio's throat. "And will that be enough to satisfy you? For good? To burn the whole earth and be done with it?"

_Yes_.

"So needy…" Lio scoffs.

He opens his mouth to say something else but something slams into the core.

Lio snaps back to reality as the explosion hurls him into the ground. The air is knocked from him.

"_LIO. LIO!"_

It's Galo.

Lio opens his mouth to call back, but his throat has been scraped to nothing. It comes out a gasp. His eyelids flutter, as heavy as his body, though he strains against immovable limbs to reach for his friend. To respond. _Anything_.

Somewhere in the haze, he feels Galo's hands at his shoulders. On his face.

"_Lio, you have to live. Don't disappear_ _on me—"_

Lio sees a sliver of white light tinged with blue before his eyes slip shut.

A cold seeps into his core as the last of the warmth dredges from his body. The agony falls away. Galo's voice recedes.

And there's nothing.

_At age four, Lio's family moves to the United States. He's homeschooled, in an estate befitting of (previous) aristocracy. His dad spends all day at the British embassy while his mother putters around the house complaining about American culture._

_By age ten his father and mother are in a constant state of argument. Lio sits alone in his room, dutifully filling out worksheets his mother leaves him with. She doesn't check in often enough, so he drowns out his parents' screaming with headphones and the churning of motorcycles on youtube videos. The purr of engines drifts him to sleep, face smushed on his notebook._

_By age fourteen, he's learned to sneak out of the estate. He's bought a motorcycle jacket with a year's worth of allowance, and he wears it around the neighborhood under the stars. He spends much of his time on the swings in the park, arms tucked into his armpits, the jacket an envelope of warmth in the cold of isolation. His breath comes out a heavy mist, but in it he feels a quiet rage like the smoke from a smoldering fire. He lights a cigarette and lets it rattle heat into the numbness in his chest. The smoke curls and dissipates into the dark. _

_By sixteen he's bought a greyhound ticket and run away, packed into a bus seat with only a bag of necessities and his leather jacket wrapped tight around him. Faceless people mill on and off the bus from stop to stop. The landscape blurs from city to fields to town to fields again. He steps off at the end of the line. Detroit, Michigan._

_By eighteen he's landed himself a modest job at some car dealership, manning the front desk. He buys his first motorcycle—used—and lets the scathing wind of winter rake through his hair as he tears down the streets at night. The rev cuts through the seething ache at his core, obliterating the maelstrom of thoughts bombarding his consciousness. This cold is a numb he can control. It tempers the restlessness that eats away at him._

_Until his thoughts crescendo into one united, nagging chant._

Burn. It. Down. Raze. It.

_Lio skids the motorcycle to a halt, somewhere in the middle of a city past its prime._

I want to see it leveled. I want to see it set alight.

_Lio grits his teeth, coughing out a strained laugh. A warmth funnels its way through his body. His fingers had been numb, wintery white in the cold. Now they blazed blue and yellow with the sparks of flame._

"_Shit," Lio thinks, staring at the blaze. "No. I can't. I can't burn it. That's—that's foolish."_

Burn it all. Burn it. Burn it.

_The voices grow louder._

"_What's happening to me?"_

BURN. I HAVE TO BURN.

_The flames erupt from his body before he can stop them. He's enveloped, but he does not burn. The cold is now a magma warmth, steady but boiling below the surface. He never feels the bite of cold again._

_By nineteen he's on the run again, dodging city to city and meeting up with other Burnish where he can. He listens to their stories of the pain of being hunted. The pain of ignoring those same voices. The inevitable caving to their will and setting their world alight. The collective dream of finding a place in the world just for them. _

_His people grow far and few between, but there are rumors of a group that's fighting back._

_By twenty-four he's standing in front of Meis and Guiera and has proclaimed himself the leader of the Mad Burnish._

_His bike has morphed into a sleek black motorcycle. His armor adds two feet of height to a once powerless petite frame. He stands tall, flames at his fists and embedded deep in the tempo of his heart. _

"_I will find a place for the Burnish in this world. We will satisfy our need to burn, but we will not kill anyone unless necessary. Your carelessness only makes society hate us. We will find a way to separate ourselves and thrive in peace."_

_And then there was Galo—a flashbang reel of fighting and arguing. Of capture and then escape. A cocky grin that simultaneously agitated and thrilled Lio. A challenge. Someone who could take and throw punches to match his._

_Someone who had saved him from his own rage. Who had met him halfway. Someone who had reached through the flames blazing a ring around Lio's core. And who had touched him._

Light floods Lio's senses, as the last memory settles on Galo's face.

He wills his body to return to ash.

His one assured fate in life.

The fate of a Burnish.

But then he feels a heat at his mouth and air being pushed into his lungs. Something as hot as a coal is shoved down his throat. It moves into his chest and settles over his heart. It lingers, as still as a sheltered candle.

Then flares, the flames wrapping themselves around every nerve ending. The pain returns, but Lio's fingers twitch—both hands—and the first breath heaves itself from his chest. His eyes slip open. Gradually, he makes out Galo's face as he pulls back from his lips.

"G-galo? What happened? Where…am I."

The relief on Galo's face is tangible. "Lio. You—you made it."

Lio lays sheltered in Galo's arms amidst the wreckage of the engine. It's a new kind of warmth, something subtle and gentle.

Galo falls back, slapping his own face, eyes wide. "Crap. I'm not supposed to be lighting fires as a firefighter—"

Lio's laugh is more of a rasp. "Galo. I know what needs to be done and we must do it together."


End file.
